In May 2000, failed businessman George Speight and his accomplices seized
hostages in Suva's parliamentary complex. Labour Prime Minister Chaudhry,
his cabinet, and parliamentary colleagues then remained incarcerated for
almost eight weeks. The army's failure to secure and isolate parliament,
deny Speight generous access to the news media, or prevent
[End Page 203]
his followers from roaming Suva or beyond on arson, looting, cattle
stealing, and food theft expeditions, pointed to military acquiescence in
the hostage taking. These events provoked easily the worst constitutional,
political, and social crisis to beset Fiji since its independence in
1970. For months the country was rudderless, its economy in
free fall, and its bickering chiefly establishment subject to increasing
ridicule by commoner Fijians.

These ruptures—including serious divisions within the
military—could take years to repair. By 2002, some
economic recuperation had occurred, but politically, Laisenia Qarase's
government remained trapped in a miasma of indecision and suspect
legitimacy. Determined to keep Chaudhry and his Labour party colleagues
at arm's length, Qarase refused to comply with court rulings indicating
that, under the terms of the 1997 constitution, the Labour party had
polled sufficiently well in the August 2001 elections to allow it to
participate within a governing coalition.

Robertson and Sutherland are seasoned Fiji observers with excellent local
sources, which they have used to advantage in a first chapter describing
what happened preceding, during, and immediately following the hostage
crisis of 2000. Their writing conveys a sense of urgency and tension
where crisis is never remote. Several themes emerge from their account. A
first was the military's vacillation, which thinly disguised divisions
spanning, at one extreme, special forces instructor and hostage-taking
instigator Ilisioni Ligairi; then those who tut-tutted their disapproval
of Speight's treasonable tactics, but sympathized with his supremacist
objectives; and finally
a minority of military professionals not wanting a part of these
unsavory dealings. Key figures such as Colonel Filipo Tarakinikini
veered toward the supremacist end of the spectrum, while Commodore
Frank Bainimarama tried to hold the line as a moderate. An ostensibly
civilianized Sitiveni Rabuka, who had led the 1987 military coups but
later became prime minister, is shown in these pages as now not much
more than a discredited opportunist.

A second feature to emerge from this account is Mahendra Chaudhry's
defective political antennae. Within a year of winning office in
1999, he
had alienated supporters and buoyed adversaries with an aloofness
that ignored warnings about proceeding too quickly over land reform,
mishandling the news media, and repeatedly failing to confide his
government's objectives to the public. These shortcomings were meat and
drink to local ethnic chauvinists, although this study makes it clear
that their major grievance lay with long-standing failures of indigenous
economic distribution and institutional management.

A third theme is the established Fijian leadership's credibility
deficit; it failed to face down Speight, his methods, or what he stood
for. President Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara was losing touch, the Great
Council of Chiefs appeared fractious and indecisive, while the regional
confederacies remained deeply at odds. Adding to this vacuum at the
center was an inflammation of rivalries between the Cakobau and Mara
chiefly families. This left the rebels and the Fiji military playing a
cat-and-mouse game,
[End Page 204]
effectively resolved only after a media-saturated, too-confident Speight
overplayed his hand by demanding a government totally unacceptable
to Commodore Bainimarama. The military then seized on this tactical
extravagance to crack down, arresting Speight and his ringleaders,
and edging the country away from the complete breakdown of order that was
all too imminent in mid-2000.

In essence, what occurred in 2000 constituted an eruption of long-standing
disaffection within the Fijian community. Standing back from these
events to locate deeper causes of alienation, the authors retrace already
familiar ground. As a public mechanism, the state in Fiji has not been
emancipated from indigenous pressures molding it for the furtherance
of sectional objectives. The colonial edifice has persisted through
institutions that, while ostensibly designed to protect the indigenous
community, have pauperized the majority to the advantage of self-serving
elites. Poor standards of educational attainment among Fijians remain a
running sore. Pressures for democratization and ostensible multiracialism
have chafed against Fijian commoner discontent with the economic outcomes
of chiefly led paramountcy. Although constrained for periods, the ethnic
populism that Speight exploited
never lay far below the surface.

Looking ahead ("Key Issues for the Future"), the authors acknowledge the
need for a more honest appraisal of indigeneity; the need to disentangle
that agenda from supremacist sloganeering; the need for national identity
creation, devolved decision making, transparency, accountability, and
adherence to the rule of law by Fijian institutions; as well as the need
for greater specificity in the targeting of assistance to disadvantaged
Fijians. They also recommend that all Fijian citizens should be known as
Fijian, and where differentiation is required, the terms i taukei
(indigenous) or vasu (nonindigenous) be utilized. Anti-racialism
should form a specific educational project; civil society must be
strengthened; and economic strategies entailing a massive redistribution
of resources are required. But how politically feasible are these laudable
objectives? A reading of this lively account suggests that they face
an uphill battle, given that strong interests of both a national and
an international nature may impede equity delivery, land reform, and a
political system unused to governing by popular consent.

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Additional Information

ISSN

1527-9464

Print ISSN

1043-898X

Launched on MUSE

2003-02-10

Open Access

No

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